Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Free access to cargo bikes/e-cargo bikes as part of a mobility hub/sustainable mobility platform

The post "Dolly micro-move app as an element of the Sustainable Mobility Platform," from last November updated my mobility shed concept (which others call a mobility hub) towards what I am now calling the "sustainable mobility platform."

But the SMP is more about thinking about mobility in terms of what are called "product-service-systems" or what others call either "Mobility as a Service"/MaaS or "Transportation as a Service"/TaaS.

Nigel, our e-correspondent from New Zealand, calls our attention to changes to an already interesting service in Freiburg, Germany, LastenVelo, which is a crowdfunded cargo sharing program for cargo bicycles ("Why you can hire a load wheel free of charge in Freiburg," Badische Zeitung).

The system is a little clunky in how the rentals work--in whole day rather than fractional increments, but it is free, with voluntary donations requested.

The service sells ad space on the bikes, and aims to use the revenue, up to per year, to fund the program.

VAG, the area transport association and the regional motorist association (comparable to the American Automobile Association) bought two e-cargo bikes to add to LastenVelo Freiburg, in return for keeping their ads on the bikes permanently ("Freiburg offers electric cargo bike hire," Metro Report International).

Mobility Shed Service Elements
Sustainable Mobility Platform centered on a Mobility Hub 
(typically a transit station)

I continue to work out where to place the various rungs on the ladder.  It's easier if you split it out according to trip distance.  These are the elements:

-- Walking
-- Scooters/Skateboards
-- Cycling
---- secure bike parking, air pumps, repair stands
---- access to trailers
---- tandems
---- cargo bikes
---- e-bikes
---- special populations ("Two men leading an effort to provide bikes to homeless," WLOX-TV)
-- Bicycle sharing
---- community system
---- building/campus (e.g., hotel, office building, university, office complex)
---- special populations ("New bike share program gives One80 Place's homeless a way around the city," WCIV-TV)
-- Segways/electric wheels
-- Delivery services (e.g., Dolly; UPS, FedEx, etc.) and package pickup points
-- Transit
---- various bus, streetcar, light rail, heavy rail, railroad services
---- network scale (regional, metropolitan, city; primary, secondary, tertiary)
---- intra-district(Baltimore Circulator, Circulators, San Diego FRED Shuttle); tertiary network (Tempe Orbit)
---- shuttle services (school, employer, residential)
---- microtransit either private (Bridg, Chariot, Israeli sheruts) or public (AC Transit FLEX pilot project, "The newest battleground between public transit and Uber, Lyft is an unlikely one," San Jose Mercury News)
---- van pools (longer distance) (vride)
---- shared taxi type services at edges of the transit system (taxi collectif in Montreal) or intra-district (Via, UberPool, Lyft Line) either publicly subsidized ("Mass transit gets boost from ridesharing," USA Today; "Uber and Lyft Want to Replace Public Buses," Bloomberg) or not
-- Taxis/Ride hailing
---- single trips (equivalent of "single occupant vehicle trips")
-- Car sharing
---- one-way (car2go)
---- two-way (Zipcar, Enterprise)
---- inclusion of a variety of vehicles in fleets to accommodate multiple uses (Zipcar)
---- electric car sharing systems
-- Scooters
---- scooter sharing (Scoot in SF)
-- Car pooling
-- Car rental

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7 Comments:

At 2:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Freiburg is an awesome little city- its a university town and as such has the usual amenities but it is a historic center with a lot to see & do.

 
At 3:02 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/09/28/public-transit-finds-allies-in-private-ride-hailing-services.html

 
At 8:52 AM, Anonymous charlie said...

FYI:


https://www.ft.com/content/5efe95f6-0aeb-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b

https://www.ft.com/content/1172085c-0df9-11e7-b030-768954394623

 
At 1:03 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Thanks. I'll be writing a brief piece about this. Basically, I don't think it's a sound business model, but it isn't my money...

 
At 9:50 AM, Anonymous charlie said...

don't disagree.

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-03-27/hey-you-get-ofo-mobike-in-china


Given the capital costs for Alta/Motivate that isn't a very sustainable business either.

 
At 10:58 AM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

small pilot autonomous shuttle in Las Vegas:

https://www.wired.com/story/las-vegas-shuttle-crash-self-driving-autonomous/

 
At 9:45 AM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

FRED is successful, will be expanded:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/growth-development/sd-fi-free-ride-downtown-contract-20171114-story.html

11/16/2017

 

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